The ruling in McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission,
which split the court's liberal and conservative judges, will
provide a huge boon for political parties, committees, and their
preferred candidates in campaigns.

The decision does away with a $123,200 cap on
overall donations from an individual in a two-year election cycle
— $48,600 to all candidates and $74,600 to all political action
committees and parties. Donors don't have to worry about brushing
up against that $123,000 threshold. The decision, however, did
not touch the individual donation limits to a single candidate or
parties, which are set, respectively at $2,600 and
$5,000.

Here's a practical example of how this case could affect
the 2014 midterm elections: Republicans, for instance, are
targeting 14 Senate seats they think are winnable this year.
Donors could now give a total of $5,200 ($2,600 in the primary
and $2,600 in the general election) to as many candidates as they
want this year — in both Senate and House races.

Under the aggregate limits that were under review by the
Supreme Court, a donor could previously only give $5,200 to nine
candidates, if that donor wanted to only focus on Senate races.
Led by Chief Justice John Roberts, the majority opinion of the
court held that those aggregate limits did not prevent
corruption, and they were unconstitutional under the First
Amendment.

The previous threshold also held that a "max donor" could
give $32,400 to as many as two of the party's committees. This
led to competition among the party committees — for example, the
Republican National Committee, Republican Senatorial Campaign
Committee, and the Republican Congressional Campaign Committee.
After the Supreme Court's decision, donors will be able to max
out to as many committees as they wish.

"That makes a big difference when it comes to hard money that can
be coordinated with all candidates," RNC Chair Reince Priebus
said in a conference call with reporters on Wednesday.

It's likely that Republicans stand to gain more from the
decision than Democrats. The Republican National Committee was
one of the plaintiffs in the case, along with Alabama engineer
Shaun McCutcheon. Republicans have by and large praised the
ruling, because they view campaign spending as a form of free
speech. Democrats and the Obama administration slammed it on
Wednesday.

Last October, the Sunlight Foundation looked at who stood
to benefit from this potential decision. It found that about
two-thirds of the top 1,000 donors in the 2012 cycle gave to
Republicans.